had freed herself from all accusation by death.

Lady Mary wrote to her father, declaring that she was most
particularly anxious to see him and talk to him about Mrs. Finn.

CHAPTER XIII

The Duke's Injustice

No advantage whatever was obtained by Lady Mary's interview with her
father. He persisted that Mrs. Finn had been untrue to him when she
left Matching without telling him all that she knew of his daughter's
engagement with Mr. Tregear. No doubt by degrees that idea which he
at first entertained was expelled from his head,--the idea that she
had been cognisant of the whole thing before she came to Matching;
but even this was done so slowly that there was no moment at which he
became aware of any lessened feeling of indignation. To his thinking
she had betrayed her trust, and he could not be got by his daughter
to say that he would forgive her. He certainly could not be got to
say that he would apologise for the accusation he had made. It was
nothing less that his daughter asked; and he could hardly refrain
himself from anger when she asked it. "There should not have been
a moment," he said, "before she came to me and told me all." Poor
Lady Mary's position was certainly uncomfortable enough. The great
sin,--the sin which was so great that to have known it for a day
without revealing it was in itself a damning sin on the part of Mrs.
Finn,--was Lady Mary's sin. And she differed so entirely from her
father as to think that this sin of her own was a virtue, and that to
have spoken of it to him would have been, on the part of Mrs. Finn,
a treachery so deep that no woman ought to have forgiven it! When
he spoke of a matter which deeply affected his honour,--she could
hardly refrain from asserting that his honour was quite safe in his
daughter's hands. And when in his heart he declared that it should
have been Mrs. Finn's first care to save him from disgrace, Lady Mary
did break out. "Papa, there could be no disgrace." "That for a moment
shall be laid aside," he said, with that manner by which even his
peers in council had never been able not to be awed, "but if you
communicate with Mrs. Finn at all you must make her understand that I
regard her conduct as inexcusable."

Nothing had been gained, and poor Lady Mary was compelled to write a
few lines which were to her most painful in writing.

MY DEAR MRS. FINN,

I have seen papa, and he thinks that you ought to have
told him when I told you. I